Overwritings in the Diary

This is based on what was narrated to me during a delightfully arbit chat-up some days back, in a comfortable corner at a McD, in turn located in the kilometre long mall.
Inspired fiction, or whatever fits..

(With Batra's permission, this could perhaps become a sidey add-on to the fasinating saga here :-)

--

I am Naman.
While you may know me from my days in the valleys of Ugar, I did infact spend a good 45 months in Delhi, during the glorious twilight years of my schooling.

I was sent to Mathur International School, one of the posh new ones in South West Delhi. And unlike today, the word "International" stood for some thing. The place boasted of an optimal teacher to student ratio, as also a tremendously jargonic concoction, which went by the name of "Culturally Receptive Attitude Procreation", or CRAP, in short.
While this feature boiled down to bird-watching at the kids from the various diplomatic missions et al, it was nevertheless a big "CV Point" for our institution at the time.

Anyhoo, the little incident I intend to tell you about today, is regarding Manorama, and her little blue diary.
Manorama, or Manu as she was referred to by those close to her, was the average bubbly, cheerful, idealistic, enthusiastic child of the 90's. Into her 15th year when our paths crossed, our mutual admiration for entities as diverse as Coldplay, Dagar Sahab and Manchester United meant we clicked instantly. And thus, soon enough I learnt more and more about this wonderful person, unfathomable in the depth of her thought, and irrepressible in the power behind her dreams. An IAS she wanted to become, and the signs were encouraging, to say the least. Anything she touched, would accept her as an apt pupil, and shower on her the choicest blessings. Thus one year into our friendship, I was astounded, when one fine day I realized she was into her 11th year learning Odissi; had unprecedentedly been promoted to School Magazine Editor, a year in advance; and, had taken up Economics as a 6th subject (while most of us grappled with the minimum requirement of 5), just because it caught her fancy after she stumbled across some book by Samuelson-Nordhaus.

Thus, she was the undisputed object of a multitude of emotions - affection to many, envy to some, pride to the teachers, and the likes. To me, she was just the iconic, unassuming, and incredibly humble embodiment of grace, courage and character. The accolades she collected at will didn't seem to come between our uncaring, blissfully light friendship. And for that, I knew she was more than 'just a friend'.

Then, one day she disappeared.
If not turning up to class wasn't bad enough, the countless calls to her place all went unanswered. With mobile phones still a few years away, this meant I, and the pretty much rest of the world was out in the dark on what grave mystery had swallowed our beautiful little butterfly.

Then, one cold winter morning, exactly 8 days since her disappearance, she returned.
But the bright hues previously resplendent on her wings had now faded; her smile no longer reflected her heart; and most of all, she was quiet like never before.
Soon enough, our entire ecosystem learnt from various sources, that Manu's mother had died in a bus accident. She had broken this to me the evening of her return, while walking back home. While I was left dumbstruck, I soon realized I had to stand by her, in this dark, dark hour.

However, such are such times, that the harder one tries to be of service, the farther one gets from it. Soon enough, I realized this, and backed off, minimizing my contributions to the bare minimum she asked for.

In retrospect, perhaps the single most important gesture came from our class teacher, Mrs. Prakash. In her early fifties, mother to two, she had lost her husband in the Kandahar hijack episode. To her eyes, we were all her children, and I mean that not in the cliched sense of the phrase. She lived by those words, and truly cared for every single one of us, irrespective of whether a student studied, played soccer, or smoked in his/her free time.

She gave Manu, a little blue diary, that would change her life forever, and then, years later, lead to this blog post.

As the eldest in the house, the onus of "making the house a home" fell on her tender shoulders, as did other domestic duties. Thus, the exquisite little muse that had been, soon found its wings getting clipped, bit by bit.
In this trying phase, when all else was leaving her side, and her role at home growing ever heavier, the diary gave her a confidante that transcended human barriers; it gave her, Anu, her pen friend that she would write to every night, in the safe recesses of that little blue diary.

I gauged the exact nature of her relationship with Anu only years later, when I chanced on her by-then-starting-to-wear-out diary, during a trip to Delhi for a family wedding.
For it was then that I saw Anu for what she truly was.
Contrary to my lofty expectations of an Anne Frank-esque soulmate and girl-friend, what I found was a barely animate punching bag, an endlessly blotting tissue, and in some ways, a soul mate that had given oneself up to one's other half, allowing oneself to be consumed in her unrelenting fire of pain.

For unlike what is the usual perception of a diary entry, written in an orderly/unorderly manner, in sequence/out of sequence, tidily/untidily, but finally, written so as to be able to recall at a later date; written, finally, to document one's thoughts, feelings and experiences, this little blue diary, had been different.

Each day's entry, was an unintelligible mess of overwritten text, sometimes twice over, and at other times over 6-7 times. While she had maintained each day's entry to the limited space allotted to it, she had made sure every single bit of information in her head found expression in those pages, rather, every single colour of every single emotion found its vent in that mortal canvas.

Thus, while a diary is generally a luxurious hobby facilitating the documentation of experiences and emotions that matter, to Manu, it was a bare bones necessity. To her, it was the one person who could withstand all the potent sorrow fermenting within her; it was that bottomless pit, where she could dump all the misery that life threw at her; it was the welcoming arms of emptiness, which would accept the remains of her deceased ambitions and dreams; it was the one companion, that truly understood, never questioned, and always offered its services without lending an air of heaviness.

It was that frenetic overwriting that formed part of her internal support system, that made that unassuming blue diary an embodiment of the most powerful of human emotions, and that led me to write about it.

The ways and means of human expression, and its infinitely hued facets, never, never cease to amaze.

Manu, God bless..